Broken Avatar
by SlashLover93
Summary: Something happened to Aang, something bad, but he won't tell anyone what it was. He thinks he has to go through it alone, and it's killing him. Can one of the gang save him, before it's too late?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer- I do not own Avatar The Last Airbender.  
**

**Warnings: Rape of a minor and slash.  
**

**Pairings: Some Kataang, and Zukaang in later chapters.**

**Don't like it, don't read!!!**

**

* * *

**The group was sitting around the campfire outside of the Western Air Temple, eating dinner.

Katara was the first one to notice the only missing member from the group return, her smile falling off immediately, her mouth dropping open, and her pretty blue eyes widening in complete and utter horror.

"Oh my God, Aang, what happened to you?!" She cried, standing quickly, running over to the said young Airbender.

Katara's sudden outburst startled everyone in the group as their heads snapped over to where Katara had gone.

All their expressions mirrored Katara's.

Aang looked horrible!

His clothes were almost completely ripped to shreds, his pale, baby soft skin was covered in dirt, dried blood, scratches, and bruises, there was a huge gash in the back of his head that was bleeding badly, his whole fragile body was shaking like mad, and he looked like he could barely stand … but what scared them the most was the look in Aang's eyes, the light from them was gone, his eyes were so dark they were almost black, the innocence was gone, replaced instead with a pained, broken expression.

He flinched when Katara reached out to touch him. Katara was a little hurt at this; he had never refused her touch before. She only wanted to help, to heal all those nasty marks on his body.

Being concerned was an understatement for how she felt right now, seeing her Avatar hurt like this.

Katara tried to reach out to touch him again, only for him to flinch away again.

"A-Aang … pl-please, you're hurt! I only want to help! Let me heal you!" She paused, tears filling her eyes and streaming down her flawless, tanned cheeks.

"W-what happened? Who did this to you?!"

She needed to know who did this, so she could hunt them down and kill them for even thinking of laying a hand on the boy she loved more than anything else in the world.

Aang wouldn't look at anybody, just stared down at the ground. His bottom lip trembled, before he finally answered barely above a broken whisper,

"I got attacked by some muggers, while I was in town. P-please, Katara … I-I really don't want to talk about it … I just … want to take a quick bath and go to bed."

She wanted to protest, but she couldn't deny him when he was like this, it broke her heart. She could heal him in the morning.

She choked out an, "Ok."

He silently walked past the group and disappeared out of sight.

The whole group stayed in silence, doing nothing, but staring off in the direction Aang had disappeared to, wanting nothing more than to follow him, but not wanting to upset him.

* * *

Aang ripped his shredded clothes off his achy body and used firebending to burn them to ashes. He hissed slightly as he slowly lowered his body into the fountain water.

He hurt all over.

Sure, he has dealed with a lot of pain in his life, he was the Avatar after all, pain came with the job, but this … this was a different kind of pain. This pain was unbearable; it was a kind of pain that you would rather be dead than feel. It wasn't only the pain that you feel outside your body either, no it was way worse than that, this pain cut deeper, hurting him inside, out. He hurt emotionally as much as he did physically, maybe even more.

The scars and bruises would fade, but the memories and the emotional scars would remain.

He never thought something like this could happen to him. He didn't even know what those kind of things were, until those guys did them forcibly to him.

His innocence was taken from him.

They sucked the life right out of him and now he felt dead.

He _wanted _to be dead.

Anything had to be better than this.

He was broken.

He couldn't tell anybody, especially his friends. They would hate him for being so weak, for letting those guys do that to him.

… And Aang couldn't live with that. He couldn't live without his friends, because his friends were his only family, they meant the world to him, everything he did was for them, so if he lost them, he simply couldn't go on.

He had to go through this alone. He deserved it though, because it's his fault, he's the Avatar, he shouldn't have let it happen, it _shouldn't _have even happened, but he did, he let those guys abuse and rip through his body, and it had, oh God, it had.

He hated himself for it.

All of his past lives; all of the other Avatars wouldn't have let it happen to them. Stuff like that wasn't supposed to happen to the Avatar. The Avatar was the most powerful thing on the planet, so if he couldn't stop three guys from invading his body like that, he's not a good Avatar, and he failed, not only himself, but the world as well.

He was the worst Avatar in the history of Avatars.

He felt so dirty … so violated.

He felt like a whore, maybe he was, that's what those guys had called him, and maybe they're right, he's nothing, but a filthy whore.

He cried out of frustration, scrubbing at his skin so hard he bled, but he didn't care, he just kept scrubbing and scrubbing, wanting more than anything to get rid of this dirty feeling, to get the feeling of roaming fingers and lips off his skin.

Dirt and blood mixed into the fountain water, turning the pretty blue color an ugly reddish brown.

About an hour of scrubbing away at his skin, he gave up with another cry of frustration, and pounding his fist into the water, making a big splash.

It's useless! The dirty feeling will never go away and the fingers, and the lips were seared into his skin, making it impossible to wash away, no mater how hard he scrubbed, they were apart of him now, and it made him sick to his stomach.

He slowly hugged his legs to his chest, crying in his knees as his whole body began to tremble again.

Why? Why did this have to happen to him? He's barely even thirteen, far too young to have to go through something like this … but then again, he was too young to be fighting in a war and to be saving the world, but he was anyways.

Age doesn't matter anyhow; this shouldn't happen to anyone.

Aang wouldn't even wish this on his worst enemy.

After staying like that for a couple of minutes, he got out of the water and went inside the temple, into his room, and plopped down on his bed.

He was going to have trouble sleeping tonight, if he could sleep at all.

* * *

**So what did you think? Should I continue? Review, but please don't flame!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks to Sick Twisted Mind, bluedemon92, angel92, Continue!!!!, and Avatar Renara for the reviews!!! You guys inspired me to write this chapter!**

**

* * *

**There was a knock on the door.

"Aang, are you awake?"

It was Katara.

Aang sat up slowly, wincing slightly as he did. He wrapped his blanket securely around his waist, since he was naked.

"Yeah,"

The door slowly opened. Katara gave him a small smile, but Aang could tell it was forced.

"Hey, Aang … feeling any better?"

Aang tried to smile, but he only managed to grimace.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He lied.

An uncomfortable silence fell upon them.

Katara bit her lip, her hands playing with the end of her blue, water tribe robe.

"Y-you know you could talk about it … right? I'm here for you."

Aang fidgeted in his seat, nervous and scared. No, no he couldn't tell anyone, especially Katara. He vowed to himself last night that he would tell no one, that he would deal with it on his own, and he planned to keep it. It was the only way to keep his friends.

He nodded anyway though, because Katara was always there for him, always, no matter what. He could tell her anything without being judged and that's why he always told her everything. That's one of the many reasons why he loved her so much … but he still couldn't tell her, not this, it was too much.

"Yeah, I know you are, Katara and thank you, but … I-I really don't want to talk about it."

Hurt flashed through her eyes at that and it made Aang feel guilty, he hated keeping things from her, but it had to be this way.

She might be very understanding and Aang might trust her with a lot of things … but he knew she wouldn't be able to understand something like this, that this is one of the very few things he could not tell her … She wouldn't be the same if she knew, she'd be disgusted with him, so disgusted she'd go as far away from him as possible, but not before spitting on him first.

"Katara … it's-it's just … there's really nothing to tell. I'm the Avatar … a lot of people want me dead … three of those guys found me … a-and-and –"He couldn't go on. Memories of yesterday flashing through his mind, bringing tears to his eyes.

Katara noticed and quickly went to Aang's side, cautiously setting her hand on his bare bruised shoulder.

She wanted to keep pushing him for answers, because none of it made sense to her. Aang had went through so much, he's been attacked a lot of times by many people, he had even died and been brought back to life, but nothing had broken the pure, bright, lively, one of a kind spirit that belonged to the young Avatar.

So, if his spirit was broken now … it had to be more than just an attack … but what could it have been that could have broken such a pure, strong spirit that had survived so much?

But, no, she wouldn't, couldn't push him, because by pushing him for answers, she'd be pushing him further away from her.

"Aang, it's fine, you don't need to tell me. You can tell me when you're ready." She assured, her voice soft, gently rubbing his shoulder in comfort.

He flinched a little, but didn't pull away from her touch like he did yesterday. Katara inwardly sighed in relief at this.

Aang looked in her face, but still couldn't meet her eyes and managed a small, lopsided, broken smile.

"T-thanks, Katara."

She returned his smile for a second, before it fell to a frown again.

"I came in here, of course to see how you were doing, but also to heal all those wounds all over your body."

Aang looked hesitate, scared, his body starting to shake again. At Aang's reaction, Katara became hysteric. She wrapped her arms around him in a comforting, loving hug, her grip getting tighter and tighter as Aang kept fighting her, screaming and crying, freaking out like she was going to hurt him or something.

"Please, Aang, I won't hurt you! I'll never hurt you! I just want to help! Calm down, please! You're safe now! I'm here! I won't let anyone hurt you anymore! Just let me heal you!"

Aang slowly calmed down, because this was Katara, his sweet, gentle, caring, loving Katara. She would never purposely hurt him. He trusted her more than he trusted anyone. She was nothing like those guys, nothing like them at all.

With that fact he relaxed almost completely.

"Ok."

Katara gently laid Aang on his back with his head set comfortingly on the pillow. She uncapped her water pouch and let the water envelop her hands as she began healing. She started with his stomach, healing every scratch and bruise, until they disappeared completely from his skin. When she made it to the big gash on the back of his head she gasped. Not only was she having trouble healing it, but she noticed he had lost a lot of blood. She abruptly took her hands away and put the water back in her pouch.

"I-I can't completely heal that gash on your head, so I'm going to have to wrap it up."

She walked to the door, turning to Aang once more.

"I'll be back. I'm just going to get some bandages."

Then she left, closing the door behind her. She came back five minutes later, and helped him sit up straight, so she could wrap the white bandages around his head. Once she was done, she laid him back down.

She caressed his cheek, staring at him with affectionate, but deeply concerned eyes.

"You lost a lot of blood, Aang. You need to take it easy for at least a couple of days. You should stay in here and rest. I'm going in town to get ingredients for some special kind of soup. Do you need anything?"

There was a long pause and just when Katara thought he wasn't going to answer her, he said so softly she could barely hear him,

"Yeah, some new clothes,"

Katara blushed lightly, just realizing he was naked underneath the blanket.

"Ok. Well, if you need anything, I'll be back soon or everybody else is close by to help."

Aang nodded slightly, giving her a very tiny, shaky smile.

"I know, thanks, Katara."

Katara was almost out the door, when Aang suddenly cried out to her, making her stop in her tracks and turn back to him.

"Don't go by yourself! Take Zuko or Toph with you, anybody, just don't go alone!" Aang cried out in worry, fear, and desperation.

Before, he didn't care or give it much thought when his friends went into town by their selves, but now he knows the dangers of it, and he doesn't want any of his friends to find out how dangerous going into town alone could be.

He would die if want happened to him happened to one of his friends.

Katara looked a little taken a back at his sudden outburst.

"Aang, I'll be fine –"

"Please, Katara, please, I'm begging you don't go alone! I don't want anybody to go to town alone anymore! Please, for me! Please!" He pleaded desperately, cutting off what she was going to say.

Katara looked at him with questioning, concerned eyes, but did not question him. She came to the conclusion on her own. Maybe his reasons are because he's afraid the guys who had hurt him will find her in town and hurt her too. Katara smiled bitterly. She wished she would bump into those guys in town, and then she could teach them a lesson about not touching her beloved.

"Ok, if it makes you feel better I'll bring someone with me." She said finally.

Aang calmed down at that and laid back down.

"Good," He sighed in relief.

Katara stood there in the doorway for another minute, staring at Aang, before she gave him a reassuring smile.

"I'll be ok, Aang, I promise."


End file.
